


The Soldier and the Spy

by darthpumpkinspice



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Captain America: The Winter Soldier, F/M, Introspection, Natasha Romanov Feels, Red Room (Marvel)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-12
Updated: 2016-09-12
Packaged: 2018-08-14 14:08:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 652
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8017015
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/darthpumpkinspice/pseuds/darthpumpkinspice
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Takes place during Winter Soldier. Natasha realizes she gotten soft, Steve wouldn't have her any other way.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Soldier and the Spy

**Author's Note:**

> This fic developed very differently then I'd imagined. It was supposed to be a bit longer, but I sort of ran out of steam a bit towards the middle, so if the ending feels a little abrupt, that's probably why. I was toying with writing a Natasha story for a while- I love her character and enjoy exploring it. Originally I wanted to ship her with Wanda, and then decided to ship her with Steve...while she is paired with Steve now, it's only platonic, as I couldn't figure out a good way to organically make it romantic.

She wonders if she has ever been a child. She thinks back to girlhood memories and finds them absent. Natalia Romanova was born a woman, born without weakness and without kindness and without the warmth of a mother’s love.

In another life Natalia Alianovna Romanova could’ve been a ballerina. She would’ve danced in Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake to breathless audiences throughout Russia, enchanted thousands as Odette. She would’ve returned home to a loving family, been pulled into the arms of an adoring mother. Instead, Natalia is yanked out from her mother’s body into the waiting arms of the Red Room, and while she will go on to play a hundred different roles, none of them will be Odette.

In another life, Natalia would’ve loved her country as all children love their countries. She would’ve found comfort in the motherland, felt the same patriotic fervor as the siblings she never met. But instead she is taught that regimes fall, empires crumble, and only fools grow attached. The Red Room teaches her to smile at the crimson flag, but teaches her that loyalty is reserved for nothing but them.

_We will endure long after the wall has fallen_ they say. And they do. And so does she.  

She is a killer, she is a spy, she is a snake that sheds old skin whenever it suits her. She discards her name without a second thought, becomes Natasha Romanoff; not long after she discards the Red Room in place of SHIELD. She perfects her American accent, befriends the dusty star-spangled patriot, and even starts to call herself an Avenger. One day she wakes up and thinks she knows which lies she’s telling.  

And then Nick Fury is shot. And then the Winter Soldier has reappeared. And then the star-spangled patriot is a fugitive… And then, and then, and then.

Natasha never feels more foolish then she does in that moment, in her ridiculous wedge sneakers, briskly _walking_ (never running) beside the popsicle man, away from SHIELD. She’s _known_ these men and women that hunt for her and Rogers, she’s fought alongside them, laughed with them, and occasionally gotten drunk with them. She would’ve vouched for any of them, and she feels so _stupid_ now, because she’s a spy who got soft and life has decided to sucker punch her back into reality. In a complicated world filled with complicated people with complicated agendas, Natasha can only afford to depend on herself. In another life she could’ve trusted, but in this life it is a luxury she cannot afford.

Her searching eyes pick out Rumlow from the crowd; his eyes are cold and dark, he’s a predator on the hunt. It sickens her remembering how close she was to him once, how with a clever joke she could coax a smile out of him, with a kiss she could coax out so much else… Natasha remembers lazy mornings waking up beside him, warm from the heat of his body….

Natasha Romanoff was born without weakness, but somewhere along the line it’s seeped in anyway. She resolves to extinguish it. If only Rogers would be so obliging.

_What do you want me to be?_

_How about a friend?_

She tells him he’s in the wrong line of work for that- and tells that to herself too. This is not a business for _friends_. She wishes he’d have said something else- she can be a spy, a lover, an ally but not _friend_.

But there’s nothing deceptive in Rogers blue eyes, only a simple sort of earnestness- the kind that has never seen the world in shades of gray. Despite her best instincts, Natasha cannot bring herself to deny him.  

Natalia Romanova was born without weakness and without kindness and without the warmth of a mother’s love. Natalia Romanova was born as cold and as unforgiving as a Russian winter, but somewhere along the line Natasha Romanoff learned compassion.


End file.
